


Rose of Jericho

by alientongue



Series: Resurrection Plant [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Gen, Ghost Physics, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Possessing One's Own Body, Temporary Character Death, it's only one ghost but i guess the tag still counts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:00:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22035940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alientongue/pseuds/alientongue
Summary: The air is thick with cool moisture and the moonlight pours white-bright through his window and Allister’s Haunter hasn’t left his side in days.He’s lying down in bed, as he should. He needs his rest. He’s very sick, after all. He’s been very sick for a while, but by now he’s used to the way his breath rasps and rattles wetly up his throat, so it’s not so bad anymore.Allister has a rough night and Haunter helps.
Series: Resurrection Plant [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1595251
Comments: 4
Kudos: 109





	Rose of Jericho

The air is thick with cool moisture and the moonlight pours white-bright through his window and Allister’s Haunter hasn’t left his side in days.

He’s lying down in bed, as he should. He needs his rest. He’s very sick, after all. He’s been very sick for a while, but by now he’s used to the way his breath rasps and rattles wetly up his throat, so it’s not so bad anymore. 

The fever is the only really annoying part. Makes him mumble an unhappy noise and wriggle to kick his sheets away from his legs, let the misty air soothe his overheated skin even through his baggy shorts. He’s always been pale but this light blanches his legs milk-white and spindly next to the deep shadows across his bedspread. He bounces one, just slightly, to watch how its shadow dwarfs it, and the wide hem of his pajama trousers trails after it.

He tries to chuckle. What happens is that he burbles feebly, then coughs, and Haunter hovers over the bedside to hold his hand.

Haunter’s hand isn’t damp, but it’s even cooler and smoother than the air, wonderful on Allister’s sweat-clammy, trembling palm, so he hums his appreciation and holds it back. The two of them don’t quite have the right number of fingers each to intertwine them right, but they try, and Haunter clutches like it never wants to let go. Even though he’s already hot all over from the fever, his chest feels a little warmer, a little more sweet-soft instead of just sticky.

Tomorrow, a doctor is supposed to get here. A different one from far away, this time, who can help like the others couldn’t. It’ll be nice to finally not feel like the space between his ribs is full of gunk, even if he’ll have to take off his mask in front of a stranger so they can take his temperature. That part always makes him nervous. He does his best to be brave, though, so he can get better for everyone waiting at the stadium.

It must be late, because he’s getting sleepy. Heavy-lidded, a little foggy-headed. The world feels like it’s filtering in through a layer of Wooloo fluff. Through it, he can feel Haunter squeezing his hand tighter. He tries, he tries to squeeze back, but his hand feels weak and shaky, like he’s trying to lift something too heavy for him. That’s weird. But he needs his rest, anyways, to get better, so it won’t hurt anything to go to sleep. He’ll feel better in the morning.

He breathes. He closes his eyes.

Everything is murky and muddled for a bit, hot and fuzzy and fading, he’s dizzy spiraling out of his own head—and then it’s bright, bright, _bright,_ sharp and vivid and he can think again. He’s, he’s going somewhere? He wants to go back. The doctor is coming tomorrow. He can’t go back, the way is blocked—until someone reaches out, takes his hand, and squeezes, and at last he has the strength to squeeze back—

He opens his eyes. Haunter makes a soft, happy sound, its three fingers entwined with his five.

It’s strange. He’s not sleepy anymore. His body still feels heavy, sensations dull and staticky, but his head feels clearer than it’s been in days, and with that clarity he starts to worry. Something happened. He doesn’t know what, but whatever it is has never happened to him before. Groggily, he glances toward Haunter. _What was that,_ he wants to ask. His lips twitch but won’t move.

Worry starts to segue into fear and he sits up—

And abruptly the sensation that used to be his upper body pulls away like velcro. Everything from his waist up lacks any sort of weight or temperature. When he cranes his not-head over his not-shoulder in a halting, trepidatious arc, he sees their counterparts proper still laid out on the bed, his head lolling like a ragdoll’s on the pillow.

Allister is very lucky that his first instinct is to freeze rather than scream.

At the side of the bed, Haunter makes another soft noise, a comforting one. It releases his real hand and reaches for his new, weightless fake one, and he lets it, because the space where his throat and eyes would be is tight and stinging like he’s about to cry. With one hand, Haunter holds him steady, while the other one it splays on his chest and uses to guide him gently back onto the bed. Back into his body.

_It won’t work,_ Allister wants to say. _It won’t, it won’t, I’m all wrong and I don’t know why._ But it’s a good thing that he can’t say it, because he’s wrong: he sinks back and all of a sudden the sensation slots back in. Like a game cartridge, this time, not velcro.

Something pushes at the edges of his head. Not his real one, but the inside of it—the ghost one? (Because that’s what it is, isn’t it. He should’ve recognized it sooner.) The something sounds like a thought that he knows he didn’t think. 

_Hold on. Like you’re picking something up._ Haunter helpfully lifts a plush Shuppet from where it must’ve fallen off his bed in demonstration.

This time, he doesn’t try to sit up. He lies still for a moment, picking scraps of focus out of his whirling thoughts, and then tries to wiggle his fingers. They don’t, but a faint afterimage of them does. He focuses harder, tries again. They do.

_Good,_ another thought that isn’t his own praises, and he feels his lip wobble stiffly through the numbing static. Haunter smiles with its fangy, ragged-edged mouth. _Now try breathing._

He hasn’t been breathing? He hasn’t been breathing, Allister realizes, and conveniently the ensuing panic remedies that. 

Fortunately, the first thing he officially learns about being a ghost is that he cannot hyperventilate.

**Author's Note:**

> yes i did base this on a danny phantom meta post i read years ago. yes i do have slice-of-life scenarios planned for this au


End file.
